A silver relief with Apollo and the Muses
Round relief with a finely embossed and chased depiction of Apollo and the Muses making music on Mount Parnassus. Apollo is shown seated on a rock playing a viola da braccio with a bow and quiver full of arrows by his feet. The nymph Castalia is visible in the foreground. In the background, Pegasus is shown pausing in mid flight to listen to the concert. Unmarked. Diameter 16.6 cm, weight 83 g.
Presumably Nuremberg, attributed to Hans Jamnitzer, circa 1570 - 80.
The iconography of this relief is based on a drawing by Luca Penni (1500/1504 – 1556) that has survived in an engraving by Giorgio Ghisi (1520 – 1582). The engraving was exceedingly popular throughout the 16th century and often served as a model both for metal reliefs and Limoges enamels.
Literature
Cf. Nürnberger Reliefs im cat. Wenzel Jamnitzer und die Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst 1500 - 1700, Munich 1985, p. 430 ff. A relief by Hans Jamnitzer is housed in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, illustrated in cat. GNM 2007, no. 130. Cf. Also the reliefs attributed to this maker in Weber, Deutsche, niederländische und französische Renaissanceplaketten, Munich 1975, no. 271 ff. A plaque attributed to the Nuremberg goldsmith Jonas Silber with a depiction of Parnassus illustrated ibid. no. 299. For the prototype cf. Beguin, A propo de Luca Penni, im: Disegno, Actes du colloques des Musées des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, 1991, p. 11.